Halloween

I absolutely loved Halloween being on a Saturday. It was wonderful having all day to carve pumpkins and do all things Halloween. Not to mention not being overly worried about bedtime (not that they really sleep in) because we could sleep as needed...and oh having it the same night as daylight savings? Couldn't be better timing! My kids don't sleep in enough to make up for the missed sleep, but they are finally to the point of going back for a few more zzzzs when they wake up at the new 5:30 am. Phew.


Class Pumpkin Painting

We organized a class park/pumpkin painting play date the day before Halloween. It was rainy and windy, so it got moved to our house. Only three classmates were able to make it, but those four girls (and siblings) had a great time! Their pumpkins were quite festive. :)

Pumpkin Carving
As usual, Brad was in charge of the carving. I was in charge of the seed baking. Lorelei loved looking and picking out a template to print. Makin decided he wanted no template and wanted to carve it on his own. Both were so proud of their pumpkins. :) They loved having them lit for the trick or treaters who came to our house.

Activities
Having the whole day free of any going-out activities was nice this year. There were plenty of things going on around the area, but we just had a chill day. The pumpkins, Husker game and a few Halloween festivities I just pulled out of the Halloween tote kept us busy enough. We enjoyed Halloween Bingo, reading Halloween books, and the kids were thrilled to have some Jack O Lantern lights up.

Trick or Treating
After making the Wild Kratt vests for their party, this year was more of a "Don't you want to be Wild Kratts for Halloween?" kind of costume year. :) Then, they got suites as a gift at their party, so they were even cooler Wild Kratts. (There is a female who usually  makes all the inventions, on one episode she gets to try a creature power suit, which is purple, so that is why Lor is that color.)

They were dressed and ready way too early, and were more excited than ever before for trick or treating. We had a long trek around the neighborhood to help burn off that candy intake. ;) Then the kids loved helping pass out candy to the kids trick or treating when they were done.

We topped off the night with a short Berenstain Bears Halloween episode (that I then realized we hadn't watched) before bed, which was a fun treat for them.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

Mary and I are excited to plan some field trips together this year. We decided the Flower Mound pumpkin patch would be a fun place to go this fall.

Our Crew - They rode the hayride twice. :)

They had fun jumping from a tall haystack, bouncing, sliding and climbing the inflatable bounce houses/slides, conquering the hay maze and climbing the giant chair. Makin's favorite of the day was all the bounce house time.

Surrounded by pumpkins in the pumpkin house.

"The Patch" ;)

Checking out the pumpkin-eating horse.
The animals were Lorelei's favorite part.

So thankful for fall fun with friends! :)

Balloon Festival

One of the kid's favorite memories to mention is when we woke them up super-early for the hot air balloon festival. They were excited to find out we would do that again this year!

This year we decided to try a festival in a different location to see how the crowds etc differed. It is also about a month later, so we though the cooler weather would be nice.

Just had to take another "our parents woke us up early to go" shot. :)

As we arrived "only" a half an hour early, we were amazed at the lack of crowds. With the previous AM balloon festival we were among the masses parking in the dark! So early, in fact, that we got in for free! The people taking the cash were not set up on time, so as Brad was waiting in line for them to set up, they told us to go ahead since they weren't ready yet. A free family event? Perfect in our book! :) We were a little surprised at the lack of direction and organization at this smaller festival, but it was still fun for the kids to see the balloons being aired up and some of them lifting off for flight. It was definitely a much smaller scale and we were relieved it was free so we couldn't be disappointed! :)

Cooler weather was right! We were quite chilly and snuggled under blankets to keep warm!
If you start to notice a lack of Makin pictures...he is currently in the "don't take my picture" phase...hoping thats over soon!

We decided to splurge on a caramel apple for four. :) Yum!

It was a fun start to our day...the verdict is still out on what we will do next year, but we are glad we gave this one a shot! :)

Field Trip Friday and Columbus Day Fun

Its no secret I'm a field trip kinda gal. This Friday kept getting booked with just a few more fun things, so we had a jam-packed fun schedule.

It was a light homework day, so we met the Hughes at the new park. We are calling it Pixie Hallow Park or Acorn Park. One of the cutest I've ever seen for sure! This wasn't our first visit to the new park, but all the kids think this place is awesome, so we were excited for them to play there together.

Then we headed to the school where we joined many other families having lunch from the In and Out Burger truck, who donated the food for a fund raiser. Then we headed to the pumpkin patch.

About half of Lorelei's class came. She enjoyed the hayride with two classmates and loved seeing a couple of others at the patch and feeding the animals. Makin got to chat with a little brother who will likely be in his Kindergarten class next year, so that was great too. (I would like to go on record that I'm officially a pumpkin patch snob since we got to enjoy Vala's the last two years, but I try to stay positive and still enjoy the ones we do have...but just no comparison. :)) This one had a nice sized open barn for the animals, a hay bale maze and a patch. They did have pumpkins growing so that you could see the stages of growth, so I liked that, however, the pumpkins the kids got were not grown there. Still educational though. :)

We have had some crazy-warm weather for October. The mornings are gorgeous and cool and then it warms up to the 90s in the afternoon many of these days. On Columbus Day we managed to fit in school work, Arbor Hills and the lake...I was quite proud of my multi-tasking skills that day and the kids and I were so energized from all the outdoor fun!

Arbor Hills adventures with the Armstrongs who had off from school. The kids always love exploring the streams and had some fun venturing off the path here too.

Our Sunshine Lovin' Girl. :)

Lake time with the Hughes. Loving the sand and water and pretending we live by the beach. ;) This visit, Aubrey took turns pulling them on their boogie boards, which was a huge hit for all. (Don't you love the line they formed for turns? We aren't sure who came up with that but it made us laugh!)

A Day With Uncle A.J.

We were excited for Uncle A.J. to come for a visit.

He arrived late into the night Thursday, and hung out with us on Friday.

One advantage to having an extremely tall brother, no need to buy a ladder, he can get that hard-to-reach light bulb! :) He also fit in some magna tile time. :)

Then we headed to Arbor Hills. It was a gorgeous day and we loved walking and exploring.

We enjoyed Brad grilling supper and the kids played soccer with AJ, which later turned into dodge-ball. Loved the facial expressions.

Enjoying AJ's fun voices during bedtime stories. :)

Thanks for coming AJ! We loved having you!